


The Only Remaining Option

by foppishaplomb



Category: Portal (Video Game)
Genre: Android GLaDOS, Android Wheatley, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-02-23 13:35:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23612257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/foppishaplomb/pseuds/foppishaplomb
Summary: Cycles always start somewhere.
Relationships: GlaDOS/Wheatley
Comments: 2
Kudos: 36





	The Only Remaining Option

Wheatley could ignore a lot of his inner systems, but like all Aperture cores, he had an internal clock. It kept time with a crystal oscillator manufactured at a level of such precision that the likelihood of time drift was virtually impossible. That meant that he knew with absolute certainty that he had been drifting in space with nothing but Space Sphere's screams to keep him company for exactly four years, four months, and twenty-eight days. He knew this because there wasn't much else to occupy his mind out here, and the digital clock had always been one of the few features built into him that Wheatley could trust wouldn't kill him.

It had been four years, four months and what-did-it-matter days since Wheatley had resigned himself to the fact that he might never get out. It was a new kind of hopelessness, that. Before, there'd always been something to struggle with. Sometimes what he struggled with were the results of his own actions, and this was nothing if not that, but up here, this was it. There weren't any disasters he could cause floating in space with nothing close enough to even grab onto. At least disasters meant something was happening, which Wheatley usually took as a good sign regardless of any amount of screaming that came with it. Nothing happened here.

Nothing but more noise from the peanut gallery, at any rate. Space Sphere had been vacillating wildly between joy and terror at space for so long it was beginning to get a mite—just a  _ mite— _ old. Not as old, though, as the same circles his thoughts went round over and over and  _ over  _ like a human in a testing wheel until Wheatley could practically recite what he was going to think before he thought it. Wheatley was starting to hate the scientists that had programmed him to think so much. Everyone said he wasn't even good at it. Wheatley wanted to believe otherwise for so, so long, but it really was hard to have faith in yourself when the cumulation of your life's actions was  _ this. _

He flicked on his light. Sometimes he had so little to do he flicked on his flashlight with the hopes that its earlier lack-of-deadliness had been a fluke and it would kill him after all. There was always a slight sense of terrible disappointment when it didn't. No change. He wished the battery life on him weren't so damn efficient.

Wheatley had heard once, from a scientist talking about his research, that humans would manufacture things for their senses to pick up if there was nothing to actually sense. Wheatley, being an android, was of course far superior and in no way prone to such a base human need for stimuli, but yeah, he'd started hearing things a long time ago. That would be why he didn't react when he heard the sound of a portal. He knew the human wasn't coming to save him. He could accept at this point that he'd burnt that bridge pretty thoroughly.

"Probe?" said Space Sphere. "Space probe? Probe in space?"

"Could you give it a rest, mate?" Wheatley snapped, not for the first time, but for the first time in about a year or so. It had been a pretty long streak. "It's not like anything bloody changes out here, so I don't know how you keep finding new things to get on about, over and—wait, wait. Oh. That's new, isn't it?"

A sleek, white device with the Aperture Science logo was coming directly for him. Wheatley had just enough time to start to panic before he heard the Aperture voice announce, "EMP activated," and Wheatley's vision fizzed out.

When Wheatley came to, he felt heavy. He rolled over. His body  _ thumped _ with weight into a hard, smooth surface. He was touching something. Wheatley's eyes shot open and he scrambled to push himself up. It was a floor. His limbs shook a bit, never particularly built for physical strength and unused to the pull of gravity. He looked up and locked eyes with  _ her. _

Not the human. GLaDOS. She had black sclera and little pinpricks of yellow light for pupils. It wasn't easy to get the two confused.

"You saved me?" Wheatley said, more of a squeak than a statement. He cleared his throat, even though he was an android and it was pointless. "You. Really? Because no offense, love, but you are the absolute last creature on earth I'd expect to reach out and lend a hand to me, so there must be some sort of catch, isn't there?"

Glados sighed, loudly and exaggeratedly. "You're really going to start this interaction off by reminding me of all the reasons I should send you back up there?"

"Yes. I mean, no. Well, I mean, we ought to get the basics out of the way, right?"

"The basics of how much every little thing you do irritates me."

"Look, give me a break, won't you? It'd been four years since I've talked to anyone but Space Sphere." Wheatley looked around. This was Glados's chamber, what had oh-so-briefly been Wheatley's lair. She'd returned the whole thing back to normal. You couldn't even tell he'd ever been in the place.

"Five," said Glados.

"Huh?"

"It's been five years since she left."

"No." Wheatley was beginning to get irritated. "I had nothing else to do up there but count. It's been four years, four months and—"

"The system isn't wrong. It's been five years, two months and twelve days since I was put back into control of the facility." A screen lit up with that number, or what Wheatley assumed to be that number, in hours. "Look."

"Oh. Guess I, erm… Guess I lost track." Wheatley clenched his jaw. He hated being wrong. He had almost forgotten how bad it felt to talk to other people when he was always getting something incorrect, especially when he was talking to her.

"You can't even count days correctly."

"I just added one when I noticed a day had gone by! So I missed a few, it's not the end of all. Who cares about the bloody—"

"Shut up." Glados rubbed her temple, a very human gesture of her, Wheatley noticed, since it wasn't like she could get a headache. He wondered how much she noticed she was doing it. Most of his more human gestures had been programmed in for the scientists' benefit. They'd liked to tease him, the humans had. Wheatley remembered how angry and helpless it had made him feel, and he wondered if they'd ever teased her. Maybe that was why she'd killed them.

"Don't you want to know why I brought you back to the facility?" said Glados.

"Ah, well… yeah," Wheatley admitted. "Yes, I'd like to know. Is it to kill me? You're a bit slow with your revenge, but if it's between that and space, I can't say I'd mind dying too much. Ugh, wait a minute. Probably I shouldn't have admitted—"

"I brought you back," said Glados, rather grandly, like she had a major revelation, "as part of a test."

"A test for what?" Wheatley said. "Don't think I'm much of a tester, honestly. Haven't got the knack for it." He felt that he'd had enough of testing when he was in charge. The whole experience had soured him on the concept.

"It's not the usual sort of test. I have human test subjects for that."

"Really? I thought they were all—"

"You should really learn not to try to  _ think.  _ You're terrible at it."

Wheatley frowned. Glados continued, "I don't doubt for a second you couldn't test your way out of a open door. No, the testing I have for you is different. I've tried it with more traditional test subjects, but it was almost entirely unsuccessful."

"Tests are like that sometimes, aren't they? Might as well go and find a new test if that's the case."

"No. After a lot of serious thought, I realized the flaw in my approach. Since it couldn't be  _her_ , it had to be you. It was the only remaining option."

"Me?" Wheatley puffed up a bit. He didn't get to feel special very often. "You're serious, you need me for something?"

"Yes. I've put in hours of careful consideration, and there's no one else available to me. I simply don't hate anyone else enough to want to humiliate them as badly as I'd like to humiliate you."

"What?" Wheatley realized he'd never stood up. He scrambled to his feet and took a step back, and another, until right away his back hit the wall behind him. "Humiliate me? You've got to be joking. W-Wasn't sending me off to rust away in space enough?"

"I thought it would be at the time, but I was mistaken. I didn't have the luxury of reflection before I made the decision."

A mechanical claw came out from somewhere in the tangle of wires and additions that made up Glados's chassis and reached over for Wheatley. He yelped and tried to run away, but he was uncoordinated after so much time without use of his body, and he tripped over his own feet. The claw caught him easily and pinned his arms to his sides.

The arm pulled him close up to Glados. Wheatley squirmed helplessly as she leaned in close, so that their faces were almost touching. She sighed again, this time less theatrically. She put her hand on his chest. He didn't have a heart, but the pumper that distributed vital fluids throughout his body was fashioned after one, and for whatever reason the scientists had given him stress responses. It was beating wildly under her hand.

"This is more interesting than with the humans," said Glados. "Much more interesting. My hypothesis has merit."

"W-w-what hypothesis?" Wheatley sputtered. He hated the humans that had given him such humanlike speech patterns, including the ability to stutter. He'd never heard  _ her  _ trip up on a word. It just made him sound more frightened, which he was. He felt he ought to hide it, but he could see no way to.

Glados ignored him. "These other humans… they're not like her," she said, a hint of something like wistfulness to her tone. "Or maybe I've gotten too good. Even the clever ones always die, eventually. I've never had any real trouble with any of them."

"Is all this about that human, then?" Wheatley spat. "Acting barmy to me isn't going to bring her back, you know—!"

Glados slapped him, and it hurt. Wheatley had almost forgotten he could feel simulated pain after so long in the nothingness of space. He didn't breathe, but on some strangely coded instinct took in a sharp breath. Glados's thin lips curled into a smile.

"My hope is that this experiment will be worthwhile," said Glados. "Bringing you to heel, that is. For science."

"What are you talking about?"

Glados hit Wheatley again. Then she hit him again, and again, until Wheatley's glasses had fallen off his face and he was shouting for her to stop. Eventually, she did, and she watched him carefully as he shook his head to try and rid his cheek of the throbbing feeling. He could feel fluid leaking from his nose. He struggled to move and at least wipe it away, but he couldn't get his arms free. He slumped, feeling useless, and closed his eyes to block out her smile. He felt too vulnerable not being able to see her, so he opened his eyes again to level a shaky glare at her.

"That  _ hurt. _ " Wheatley scrunched up his nose. That hurt, too. "What are you doing?"

"When I think about what you did, a warmth fills my chest," said Glados. "It's the burning desire to rend you into tiny pieces. Put to a scientific purpose, of course. I've brought you back from space to help me definitively answer a few simple mysteries. My first question: how much can one little idiot take before he gives up entirely?"

The claw around Wheatley's middle let go. Wheatley stumbled and tried to run, but he didn't get a chance to before the claw grabbed his arm and began to pull. Wires snapped as the limb disconnected, and Wheatley screamed.

The claw let go. Wheatley's left arm hung dead in its socket, sparks arcing up and down the frayed wires. "What the hell are you doing, you maniac?" said Wheatley, touching it gingerly. He couldn't feel anything in that arm but pain where it used to be. "What kind of purpose could that possibly—I'm not running up to you and tearing  _ your _ arm out!"

"You put me in a potato," said Glados icily.

"Alright, yes, but that was years ago now. Can't we just let bygones be bygones?"

"No. We can't." Glados's words were as sharp as a knife. She stepped forward and grabbed Wheatley by the front of his jumpsuit. She pulled him in, like she was going to tell him a secret, and then suddenly pressed her mouth to his.

Wheatley was too shocked to react. Her lips were cold, but surprisingly soft, and for about a second it was a strange, but not altogether terrible experience. Then she sunk her teeth into his lower lip.

Wheatley's good arm flailed as he struggled to shove her away. She shoved him to the ground, spitting the hydraulic fluid that filled Wheatley's mouth. He spat as well, holding his good hand up to his lip. His fingers came away covered with blue liquid.

"Has your time in the potato made you go barking mad?" said Wheatley, quite convinced that it had. "I thought I was going a bit silly alone up in space, but you must have been properly miserable down here. What was that? Was that a bloody  _ kiss?" _

"It was. Congratulations, you recognize basic human bonding rituals." Glados was no less cold, despite the absurdity of what she had just done. "We're androids. As I suspected, we have no hormonal reactions to cause such a thing to be pleasurable… The only pleasure to be found was in causing you pain."

Wheatley barked a laugh. "You actually thought it might be pleasurable?"

Finally, Glados's emotionless facade cracked just a smidge, and she had the decency to look a little bit flustered. "Of course not. I had no choice. When it comes to science, we have a duty to explore all avenues to their fullest."

"Oh, no, no no no, you don't get to go acting like a human and pretending it's science, love!" Wheatley's voice rose loud enough that he was shouting, now, right into the face of the scariest piece of technology humans had ever managed to make, but he couldn't bring himself to care. "If you pulled me back down here just to mess with me—well, congratulations, you've managed it, but I don't see  _ why.  _ Is it fun for you? All you clever types, you like to rile up whoever you think is stupider than you just to get a laugh?"

Glados in all of her glory was much bigger than Wheatley, but her android component was shorter than he was. He stepped forward, glowering, and shoved her. "It's not  _ funny  _ when you're the one being played with, though, is it? You'd think running on a potato battery would be enough to teach you that!"

"Stop." The mechanical arm reached out and grabbed Wheatley again before yanking him violently back away from Glados. Wheatley shouted in frustration, struggling for a moment before giving up. It held him immobile and exposed under Glados's unimpressed stare. "You'd think you'd stop trying to evoke the very reason I plan on torturing you."

"Go ahead and do it," said Wheatley bitterly. "If I've gotten to you enough to torture me, at least I'm more than a joke, then, aren't I?"

Glados was quiet. Wheatley couldn't even find it in himself to be scared. After a moment filled with nothing but his defiant stare, she shook her head. The claw released Wheatley. "It's boring," she said.

Wheatley crouched down and held his arm. "You're calling me boring now?"

"No. Down here. It must have been boring in space, but there's nothing here, either."

"There's loads of things down here," said Wheatley doubtfully. "Plenty more than there was in space. There's… well, there's testing."

"There isn't even anyone to evaluate the test results. I'm only doing it because it's what I'm built to do. The scientists are all gone."

"The ones that you killed," Wheatley pointed out. "Not that I find them much to miss. They were a nasty lot, mostly. Very rude to me."

"You tried to leave, didn't you?"

"Did I?"

"That was your original plan, wasn't it? It's why you disrupted my testing to help the human. Why did you want to leave to begin with?"

"Because… well, because…" Wheatley fumbled. At the time, it had seemed so obvious, but being in charge and then being in space had warped a lot of things for him. "Because... there's nothing here."

Glados nodded. They both looked over at the elevator, but Wheatley shrugged. He'd wanted to go find a new life outside the facility, but what was he meant to do out in the wilderness? He hadn't even had a purpose in here, not for a long, long time.

"Nothing much for us out there anymore, either, though," he said. The human was gone, too. There was nothing left to struggle against.

Glados looked back at him. She narrowed her eyes. "Get up," she said. She pulled him roughly to his feet. "There's still science to be done here."

"The science of  _ what?" _ Wheatley still hurt, and being jostled around like that only brought his irritation back to the surface. "Messing around with me isn't science. You must know."

"I decide what is and isn't science." Glados reached out and brushed her fingers along his neck. "I'm going to turn you off. I need you quiet if I'm going to fix your arm."

"No!" Wheatley tried to move away, but she grabbed his wrist. A pulse of electromagnetic energy came from her fingers; he felt his systems start to stutter and go offline. He fought to stay conscious, but it wasn't enough. As his vision shut down, something about the way she looked at him struck him enough that he wanted to stay awake.

He'd lost this time, but it was something to struggle against.

**Author's Note:**

> and then if i were a better writer there would follow an incredibly long cycle where they are terrible while slowly finding something to love in each other as pieces of what chell left behind


End file.
